"Jerry Jones is the only person who can actually fix this and he also might be the only person who doesn't know it is broken."- 12/30/13
Daily Commentary on the Dallas Sports Scene - By Bob Sturm - Sportsradio 1310, The Ticket

Monday, October 03, 2005

Well, I am glad that the “ultra competitive” Larry Allen, who was given a completely free pass for his swipe at Jose Cortez last week because of his fiery “will to win”, was so competitve yesterday that he got abused for 4 quarters by Warren Sapp. Perhaps in 1999 it is not embarrassing to be abused by Sapp, but in 2005 many have left Sapp’s career for dead. Well, luckily for him, he was matched up against an equally washed up superstar of another decade.

Football is pretty simple. Your big boys beat their big boys and you generally control the line of scrimmage, which then generally controls the scoreboard. On Sunday in Oakland, the Cowboys were controlled on both sides of the ball. Lamont Jordan looked like the $27 million dollar man that he was supposed to be, Derrick Burgess, Sapp, and Ted Washington dominated the Cowboys OL for most of the day, and on the line of scrimmage, Oakland won big.

But, because it is the NFL, the Cowboys had 3 shots at the end zone from about 5 yards away.

2nd down and 2 from the 3 yard line: Run left with Jones behind Allen and Adams and 2 TE’s. The play was doomed from the beginning as Raiders poured past those two highly compensated linemen, and Jones is nailed for a 2 yard loss. Marcus Spears was the FB, but he was not a factor as LT (especially) and LG had been beaten before the play was a moment old and Tommy Kelly blew the play right up.

3rd down and 4 from the 5 yard line: Jones and Witten are kept in to protect, with Keyshawn to the left, Glenn in the right slot, and Crayton out right. Bledsoe is looking nowhere but Keyshawn the whole play, and fires a pass that had no chance over Keyshawn’s head. Nmandi Asomugha was all over Key, and really did a great job all day against him, considering I am not sure I have ever heard of him before yesterday besides draft day of 2003.

4th down and 4 from the 5 yard line: After a timeout, the Cowboys had to go to the one play that they believe can get them the end zone. Technically, they could still get a first down, but it was only inches from the goal-line. This time, Keyshawn is wide right, Glenn in the right slot, Crayton wide left, with Witten off of Left tackle. Keyshawn heads on another fade route, Glenn and Witten run similar sideline patterns, and Crayton runs a slant while crossing with Witten. By now, you know where Bledsoe went. Just like in the Washington game with one play left, he throws a pass too short to Terry Glenn. If the pass was better, Glenn might have caught it, but Charles Woodsen decapitates him before Glenn can get enough yardage for a touchdown, although you could debate it may have been enough for a first down. Meanwhile, with Crayton’s slant occupying the defenders, Witten stands all alone at the top of the screen, and would have walked into the endzone. It is easy to play QB from my couch, but how do you ignore Witten on the goal line on the last 2 plays given how clutch and open he appears to be on numerous 3rd downs throughout the game?

Nevertheless, the Cowboys are 2-2. Again, they could/should have won both the games they lost, and could/should have lost both the games they won. Take your 2-2 and get ready for Philadelphia.

Parcells pinned this loss on his rookies. He mentioned Tyson Thompson and DeMarcus Ware by name and alluded to others.

"Some of our young players today kind of hurt us with some mistakes," Parcells said. "Missed assignments ... Ware is offside three times. You know, those are concentration things that hurt. We just did enough of that stuff to keep us from being successful."

When Parcells decided to make this rookie class an important part of the team – two started and eight played Sunday – he knew they would make mistakes.

He's simply betting that the rookies will be better players at the start of November than they are right now, which will make Dallas a better team. So he's willing to put up with Thompson's missed blocks, Ware's penalties, right guard Rob Petitti's struggles in pass protection and running back Marion Barber's inability to convert a third-and-2 from the Oakland 12 in the second quarter, forcing Dallas to settle for a field goal.

"I told you what I was going to do," Parcells said of using rookies. "There are some problems involved in doing some of that."

If you don’t like what rookies do at RB, perhaps I could interest you in “healthy scratch” Anthony Thomas? Seems like he could handle things that rookies cannot.

Remember when I wrote on August 9th, that we might not want to bother with premiership season since Chelsea had it won before it started?

It Starts Saturday!! The English Premiership Opens for business. This represents happiness on Saturday mornings for the next 9 months for me. Sadly, Chelsea is good enough to already be declared the winner, but the rest of us ponder who finishes 2nd (Arsenal, most likely) and who finishes 3rd. Manchester United will have something to say about that, but so will my beloved Liverpool

Well, Chelsea decided to go into Anfield, and show Liverpool how football is played on the Reds turf, with a 4-1 thrashing …Ouch….

Aggie head football coach Dennis Franchione reminded us after his team's 16-13 overtime victory over the Baylor Bears on Saturday that the University of Texas was A&M's rival.

Of course that's true. But what many of us didn't know until Saturday was that Baylor is closer to A&M than A&M is to Texas. Now that's cause for concern.Baylor, which just two years ago was outscored 191-24 by Texas, A&M and Tech, came within a play of beating the Aggies in consecutive years for the first time since 1984-85.

It was easy for A&M fans to shrug off last year's 35-34 overtime loss in Waco as a fluke. There's no way Aggies can shrug off what happened Saturday at Kyle Field.For three-plus quarters Baylor was the better team. It just doesn't know how to win. The Bears self-destructed, showing why they've never won a Big 12 road game.

Guy Morriss has that thing headed in the right direction in Waco. He is no Kevin Steele.

33 comments:

Jason F.
said...

I do believe the Julius Jones bandwagon could use some repair. It seems like he is actually getting worse as the season goes on. I'm sure some of that could be due to the fact that we have about 10 million dollars of over-rated on one side of the line, but it also probably has something to do with the fact that the other team isn't studying Eddie George film.

So tamu fans - do your faggys just suck that bad or is baylor getting a little better than you think? I know, you won, baylor lost -- but damn! Give Morriss another season to teach those kids how to win and tamu and its over-rated coach will be even further exposed. SIC 'EM BEARS!

I don't think I've ever seen more totally wheels off plays with the Cowboys yesterday--especially the last 3.

I thought Baylor would get blown out by A&M: Then Baylor looks like they might win the dang game outright: Then they blow it so Gribble can call it "a gritty win against a quality Big 12 team" for the next year: #%@# it!!!

P.S. Bob, where is your mea culpa on the Baylor game? I drank the Fran cool aid and paid for it, so how about a "Gribble is God" T-shirt for a week?

Hey Bob,What? No comment on the Jones/Tarver fight?! Here's my pocket change: Jones is more showman than fighter. Tarver owned the middle of the ring chasing Jones as he worked on moves for his next music video. I believe in the 7th or 8th rounds, Jones threw 8 punches and landed 3! Add that to 16 head shakes and 3 moon-walks. Jones has lost his speed, stamina, and after that fight, dignity. Hang it up....next to your Air Jordan jumpsuit. On that note, I wonder how much money His Airness lost on the fight.

Geez, give us a break. Fran the Fraud still hasn't won a meaningful game since he arrived in College Station 3 years ago. Even R.C. beat OU in his last year there, but of course Fran followed that up with a 77-0 disaster the very next season.

Message to Fran...before you start talking about Texas, trying beating somebody decent first! Such a big deal is made of the Horns 5 game losing streak to OU, but the last time I checked, A&M has their own 5 game losing streak against Texas. And it is quite true, right now A&M is much closer to Baylor than they are to Texas.

Here's another message for Fran. As a Horns fan, I'm much more concerned about the game coming up next month in Waco than the one later on in the month at College Station.

As for rivalries, A&M may consider Texas to be their top rival, but the feeling isn't mutual. Any Horns fan would tell you that the OU game is much more important (mainly because it always decides who the South champion is) than the A&M game each year.

Yanks pissed @ Showalter for pulling Young, Tex & Blalock early in yesterdays 7-4 loss to the Angels. The win gave the Angels home-field advantage. I love A-Rod's quote...."There's a code of honor when so much is on the line." Does your code say anything about knocking a ball out of someone's glove when they are trying to tag you? A-Rod, you had 161 games to take care of business yourself instead of relying on your old team to bail you out. Hell, they are paying half your salary so shut the hell up. Yankees suck!

Instead of losing six out of ten to the Angels, trying winning one or two of those six games. The tiebreaker doesn't come into play, then. And also, didn't the Yankee's have a chance to win the game themselves yesterday? Crybabies!!!

Why did the Cowboys sign Anthony Thomas and Peerless Price. According to Norm, Price isn't that great, so we shouldn't be too worked up about why he isn't playing. But then why were the Cowboys acting as if this was the steal of the cut day pick ups? The season is 25% done, and he hasn't contributed at all. As for Thomas, I'd be much more comfortable if he were given the ball on the 3rd and 2 play rather than Marion Barber. If he can't play special teams and that's why he's not in the games, then he should have been released in August. If neither guy is going to be used, would that money not have been better spent on another lineman. There is not enough space on the roster to have guys as "insurance". Sure Glenn or JJ could go down at any point in the season, but you can argue that they could have two more wins if they have better players in at key situations. If Jones is in instead of Tyson Thompson on those 3 running plays against Washington, maybe they pick up the first down, score and win. If they get the first down yesterday instead of Barber losing a couple, and score a touchdown, we're talking about a win today.

Either one of two things are going to happen this weekend in the Cotton Bowl (or is it Coddon Bowl?).

Scenario number one...Texas will no longer be intimidated by OU and they'll not play conservative or tight. If that happens, they'll absolutely blow OU out of the stadium because they're the vastly superior team this year.

Scenario number two...Texas will shrink back into their shell and play "not to lose." If that happens, OU will probably win a close game.

i completely agree that parcells should take the brunt of the blame. in key situations your stars should get the ball, not backup runningbacks. Im also confused about the signings of these veterans (eddie george, price, thomas) then not using them. why even bother

Predicting the Texas/OU game is simple. If the same Longhorns show up that did against Michigan and Ohio State, Texas wins by at least three touchdowns. However, if the same Longhorns show up that have for the past 5 years against OU, they'll lose in a low scoring game.

No way texas is going to lose the OU game. they are on different levels this year. even if they go into a shell, they will grind out a 10 point win. i hate texas, but vince is too freakin good for this game to be close. too good on special teams, they might score twice returning kicks saturday, too good all around. no way mack could lose this one, its impossible.

I doubt anyone really cares much about the baseball playoffs starting tomorrow, but just something to watch...don't be surprised if the Padres upset the Cardinals in their first round series. That's my upset special.

Consider it marked, and laughed at. The only way Bomar outrushes VY is if they count sacks as positive yards, especially with OU's starting center out for the game and Peterson running at 60%. Bomar is going to get decimated.